Hello,

Once again it is a great pleasure to write this welcome for the 2011-2012 academic year for UAF’s SPE student chapter. First, I would like to Thank last year’s officers President Sagar Kamath; Vice President Chad Hough; Treasurer Lyazzat Khamzina and Secretary Vivek Peraser for their hard work and dedication. I would like to extend my special Thanks to the outgoing officers for their valuable contributions in the following student chapter related activities: (1) planning and participation in engineering week open house; (2) major mania and last but the most important (3) volunteering at the 2011 SPE WR meeting that was held in Anchorage. With the help of the officers and other volunteers (Chinmay, Bahram, Prachi and Dhaval) our student chapter successfully hosted the WR student paper contest as well as the first ever poster contest.

It also was a pleasure for me serve as the moderator for this contest. My special Thanks go to BP Exploration Alaska and the SPE Alaska section for their financial support that enabled the travel of all the volunteers and UAF competitors to the WR meeting. We had great success at the student paper and poster contests with Maduabuchi Umekwe and Chinmay Shukla winning the 2nd and 3rd place awards respectively in the combined BS and MS division. They competed against students from University of Southern California and Stanford University. In addition to the paper contest, equally successful was the inaugural poster contest with Bahram Novruzaliyev and Prachi Vohra winning the 1st and 3rd place respectively. I am really proud of our students' achievements. Congratulations to all the winners for their achievements; way to go! And, I sincerely hope the success at this rate continues in the future bringing recognition to the SPE student chapter, PETE program, CEM and UAF.

Since summer 2011, Sagar successfully graduated with a BS in petroleum engineering in May 2011 and currently plans to pursue an MS in petroleum engineering at UAF. Chad is now a senior and also the 2011-2012 SPE student chapter President. Lyazzat also successfully completed her BS in petroleum engineering in May 2011 and is currently pursuing her MBA at UAF while Vivek is currently wrapping up his MS in petroleum engineering. I wish them all my very best for the upcoming year. I also welcome the new officers President Chad Hough; Vice President Alexander Janorschke; Treasurer Christina Twogood and Secretary Hrishikesh Joshi, and look forward to working with them. Chad, Alexander and Christina successfully completed their summer internships, while Hrishikesh was busy working on his MS research. This year I am also working on coming up with some financial support that will enable the current chapter officers to travel to the 2011 SPE ATCE that takes place in Denver, CO. Especially important this year is the brand new Student Chapter Officer Workshop that SPE will be organizing, which will allow our officers to collaborate and discuss new ideas and best practices with other student chapters around the world.

Our first SPE seminar this academic year is tentatively scheduled for September 30th while, Joshua Michie, our 2010 graduate and SPE student chapter liaison from SPE Alaska Section is working hard on attracting more speakers. I have already made requests to BP and ConocoPhillips for possible North Slope field trips for our student chapter members, while planning for another field trip to one of the TAPS pump stations is currently underway. As always, my sincere Thanks to ConocoPhillips for organizing the field trips every year for our students. This year we are also planning to engage all the officers and any other student members that may be interested in volunteering activities such as visiting local area high schools to increase awareness in petroleum engineering and petroleum industry in general. Please keep an eye on the student chapter announcements and let me or the officers know if there are any particular topics that you would like to be covered in Friday afternoon SPE seminars or if you have any other ideas for the student chapter.

This year again four top PETE seniors were nominated by the SPE student chapter to participate in the 2011 IPTC education week that will be held in Bangkok, Thailand in November. PETE senior Steven Gieryic was selected by the committee from a large worldwide pool of applicants to travel to Bangkok on an all expenses paid trip. Unfortunately, Steven is unable to travel due to other commitments but nevertheless his selection is still a success story for us.

The 2012 SPE Western Regional Meeting will be held 19–23 March 2012 in Bakersfield, CA. I will be serving as the technical program committee member for this conference. Similar to previous years there will be a student paper contest in the BS and MS division organized during this conference and I would encourage you all to consider this opportunity to present your work and compete with some of the top petroleum engineering programs in the nation. I will keep you posted on the details as they become available.

Finally, I would like to encourage you all to be active in the SPE student chapter at UAF. Even if you are not holding any official position, you can still contribute in many ways towards the activities of the chapter. Please feel free to bring any new ideas, initiatives etc. directly to me or to any of the SPE officers; your suggestions to make an even stronger student chapter are valuable and are always welcome because the student chapter is for the students’ benefit and overall academic development.

I wish you all a very successful and productive academic year.

Thank you

Abhijit Dandekar